Monday, January 23, 2017

NASS Exposes Monumental Fraud in PPPRA; Fixes Petrol at N70 Per Litre

The House of Representatives on Monday declared that the Petroleum Products Price Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, is fraudulent and have been defrauding Nigerians.

According to HoR members, the pump price of petrol shouldn't be more than N70 per litre, instead of the N145 per litre upper lid imposed by the NNPC.

The House's ad hoc committee on Review of Pump Price of Petrol, during a public hearing on Monday grilled officials of the PPPRA, Nigeria Ports Authority, Nigeria Customs Service and other industry players and marketers.

They established that the 30k built into the pricing template as "administrative charge" wasn't needed as the National Assembly has approved a separate budget for it. N1.3bn was approved for PPPRA for the charge in 2016.

In the 2017 budget, another N500m was approved for regulation, monitoring and supply of petrol.

"These budgetary provisions have already taken care of the purpose for which you charge 30k on the template, yet Nigerians continue to bear the burden by paying N145 per litre," the ad hoc committee chairman Nana Igbokwe said.

The committee also questioned the rationale of another 84k built into the template as port charge paid to the Nigerian Ports Authority. This money was meant to take care of port services like dredging but the services were never provided, the lawmakers said.

There was mild drama when the Abuja Liason Officer said the NPA had no idea how PPPRA arrived at the 84k payable to his agency.